Previous Challenge Entry (Level 3 - Advanced)
Topic: Diet - deadline is 8-9-12 9:59 am NY time. (08/02/12)
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TITLE: A Perfect Fit | Previous Challenge Entry
By Lisa Johnson
08/09/12 -
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ADD TO MY FAVORITES
“Chubby.”
“Pleasingly plump.”
“A healthy eater.”
There is no kind way to say it . . . I was a fat child. I can not remember a time when I was not bigger than my classmates. There was always someone monitoring my eating habits. My dad even tried bribes to get me to lose weight.
In the summer between my Junior and Senior years in High School, I was the smallest I had ever been in my “adult” life. I had lost an amazing seventy-five pounds. My parents were so excited for me, but there was something they did not know. They never would have found out my secret, except that one of my friends “ratted me out.”
The deep, dark secret that I had kept from my parents was anorexia.
For all practical purposes, you could say that I had starved myself for six months. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, I allowed myself one half of an apple and a slice of cheese. The rest of the time, I drank nothing but water. Not only had I lost weight, but I had made myself dreadfully sick in the process. Needless to say, my mother dragged me to the doctor . . . the doctor made me start eating again, and . . . I gained all of the weight back and then some.
I remember this episode. I do not remember doing it again, during my Freshman year in college, but evidently I did. I guess it is a case of selective memory, because my daughter found my old diary, and showed me the entries to prove it.
“I did not eat yesterday . . . I am not going to eat today . . . and I probably won't eat tomorrow.”
As I write this, I am hungry, and a brief thought passes through my mind, “I don't need to eat anything right now.” Even now, after losing my thyroid to cancer, I still struggle with my diet. I'm not trying to lose weight, just trying not to gain it. Alas, I've resigned myself to the fact that I will never be a supermodel.
Truth be told, when I was the smallest I had ever been in my life, it did not make any difference. It did not change the way people saw me because it did not change the way I saw myself. I did not want to be pretty . . . I did not want to be popular. I just wanted to fit in . . . to be accepted . . . to belong.
Physical food feeds the body. Spiritual food is needed to feed the soul. More detrimental than starving myself physically was the fact that I was starving myself spiritually.
I never ever got what I wanted because of going on a diet. Because of Jesus, I'll always have everything I need.
I asked Jesus to come into my heart when I was a small child. He became my Savior. I rededicated myself to Jesus when I was a teenager. He became my Lord. My desire became to feed myself on the Word of God, and to serve Him faithfully. Covered by the Blood of Jesus, I am accepted into the Family of God. By the Grace of God, I belong in the Kingdom of God. When I look at my life through the eyes of Jesus, I can see that I fit in perfectly.
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Scripture References:
Matthew 4: 4
I Peter 2: 2
John 4: 35
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